I recently found out that a forum that I used to frequent shut down last year. I haven’t been part of the community for several years. I was there to learn, and then I left around the time I started studying astrology. I joined a different community.

The woman who ran the forum ran it for nearly 20 years and no longer could. She did not want to have to train someone on the particularities of how to run the forum because it was complicated, but it also seemed that she felt whoever she passed the reins to would not run it the way that she did. She devoted a lot of love to running it, and I think she did not want the forum to degrade under new management. For those reasons, she decided to shut it down, rather than train someone or sell. I’m not judging her decision. She did what she felt was best.

A lot of people were unhappy with her decision. It’s like finding out the school you’re going to or graduated from decided to permanently close. She archived the forum, so now it is like visiting a museum or a library. The place is memorialized. The time there is frozen.

It was a great resource and had a large, friendly community. Many people had good memories there, me included. There were people from all over the world and all walks of life there with a common, niche interest. It was a place of learning and healing.

If I had not been part of the community then, I probably would not have learned how to read Tarot. Or maybe I still would have, but it would’ve been a very different experience. I would not have been exposed to so many different people and perspectives.

Some people said, “Places come under new management all the time and do fine…” They want the place to still be around, even if it is different under new management.

I can understand her concern. She might’ve wanted to leave a good legacy. Or, maybe she wanted the place to die a good death. I can also understand people wanting to be able to keep going to a place where they felt a sense of belonging and community. They all had to find new places to go.

If you were in the same position, what would you have decided?